Monthly Archives: June 2014

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A race for fillies and mares at $7500 was drawn the other day and did not fill. It COULD have gone with six if we chose to enter but Clay strategically declined to enter. The thought is that if the $7500 doesn’t fill, the $10,000 might now with some of those going into the $10,000 along with legitimate $10,000 horses as well as a couple that might not be able to get into a $16,000 that doesn’t fill either. That $10,000 race is scheduled to be run on July 6, the same as the Prairie Meadows race. We’d prefer to run here for a couple of reasons:

1) We would run at home so everyone can see her race;

2) No shipping – always better to stay home if you can for familiarity and safety;

3) No shipping charges. Though the purse is $3000 more than the race here, that means the winner’s share is $1800 more (if we were to win). Taking out round trip shipping the difference is $1000 – IF we can win. If she doesn’t…then we would have lost money vs staying here and winning.

The risk/reward appears to be in staying and running at $10,000 here. Now should this race not fill, then we will be looking elsewhere as well as here to run.

In other news, there were a few horses that we were looking at but for one reason or another (age, appearance, etc.), we passed. But we are still looking here as well as in Chicago and elsewhere to get our second horse.

Interesting discussions have led to this blog post. We’ve talked about how hard it has been to find a race at a level we want to run at and some options. Clay and I discussed MJ’s next race and we’ve got some information and insight.

Clay was informed that filling the $10,000 claiming race that’s in the condition book for July 6 is going to be tough. We can’t get a $16,000 so we may have to settle for a $7500. Of course this really isn’t something that you want to do with a horse that you know is worth more than that but we have to race.

Here is where the Club differs a bit from “real life”. As many of you have seen by the comments, a lot of people want to get into the paddock and watch her run. If MJ was my own horse, I would send her to Arlington (or maybe Prairie Meadows). We would be able to get a race for her there at a level where we would have the balance of knowing she could win with if she were claimed we would have gotten our money’s worth from her. But she’s not my horse, she’s owned by the Club and a large part of this is for people to experience the paddock and watching their horse run live – we didn’t claim a horse for you all to watch her run elsewhere.

A possible preclusion from a claim: the new owner will be in the very same boat we are in right now trying to find her a race. But she’s ready and she needs to go so to paraphrase Crosby, Stills & Nash: If we can’t run in the race we want to run in, we’ll run in the one we’re given.

(Aside: we also have our sights set on a couple this weekend. More on that as it unfolds)

Below is the link to the first spreadsheet for the 2014 Club. You’ll see with all expenses factored in (except for the vet – that bill is ALWAYS a slow one in coming) we’re down about $6,000 from when the group closed BUT we know we have a horse that is worth at least $10,000. All in all, not bad but we’re hoping to take some of that capital and get us our second horse this weekend and also get MJ into her next race as well.

We covered Clay’s training, MJ’s vanning from Hawthorne ($350), her shoeing, dentistry, pony to post and his winning commission and groom bonus.

A couple of questions keep popping up so it’s time for a more in depth explanation of how things are going and why some things seem so difficult; the questions are, generally: where is our next horse and when will Maryjean run again?

I’ll take them in order.

NEXT HORSE

Clay and I have been trying very hard to find another runner to pick up for the Club. Many of the races being run at Canterbury are for conditioned claimers. After a horse breaks its maiden (wins for the first time) it will, if good enough, move into an allowance race or into the claiming ranks. Both are stratified into non-winners of 1, 2, 3 and sometimes 4 races other than a maiden win (for allowance races this is extended to include wins in claiming races as well). The problem with claiming a horse that only has a single condition left (usually the non-winners of 3) is that after that condition is met the horse needs to run against “open” claimers. These horses may have won a dozen times and. For the most part, once a horse moves through their conditions, they need to move down in class to compete because the competition gets more difficult.

An example:

We claim Club’s Dream out of a $10,000 claiming non-winners of 3 races lifetime. And the Dream wins. We get her back to the barn, she checks out okay but since the non-winners of 4 is a rare condition we have to run open. We run against other $10,000 open horses and finish 7th so we now need to run at $7500 or even $5000 to be competitive. We’ve just totally overpaid for a horse that is now worth much less than what we paid for her. It’s not a situation we want to be in. We have been looking for a horse that may have recently broken its maiden so WE can run through the conditions with her, but we have not found one to claim that Clay has liked.
We have also started looking at privately purchasing a horse and bringing it in from somewhere else to run for us. At this point I just want us to have another runner – one that we can’t get hurt too badly on if she doesn’t pan out. We can certainly learn from that as well.

MARYJEAN

We all know that MJ came back just fine and has been training well. Clay feels like she runs best on 3 weeks rest which would have been last weekend. Of course there wasn’t a race that fit her last weekend so we waited until the new condition book came out in the hopes that we would see another $10,000CL or $16,000CL race in the book. There was a $10,000, but not until July 6 and the only $16,000 was a conditioned claimer. We’re hopeful that the racing secretary will write a $10,000 or $16,000 before then so we can go. She needs a sprint and we’d prefer dirt. While we think she can handle turf, most of the turf contests are 7 ½ furlongs and up which is a bit beyond her range.

Another option is an allowance race. She’s eligible for an allowance non-winners of one lifetime other than maiden, claiming or starter. We have concerns about that, however, since, quite frankly, we don’t think she can win at that level and, if we run, and a race that we would have wanted fills a week later – then we wasted a race and we have to wait another 3 weeks or so for that race to come back so it becomes a bit of a dance to try and marry a race where we think she has a chance to win with the races available and being filled.

As a point of reference, I have two horses of my own that have yet to make a single start this season for various reasons – some listed here, some not , but they are ready to go and we’re restless as well.

OTHER NOTES

I understand that there is a bill waiting for me when I get to the track tomorrow (Friday) evening. I will have those numbers added to the spreadsheet and post that so you can get a feel for the costs involved thusfar.
Jeff and I will be discussing possible dates for the backside tours so we should have those out this weekend as well. The signup will be similar to last year where we will ask you to send me an email with the date and number of folks that you will have and when the tour max is reached (50 people) we will close it off. Last year neither tour maxed out.

I would like to ask you all again to please read each other’s questions and the answers in the comments section of the each blog post. I don’t mind answering, of course, but there ends up being so much information in the comments section that you miss and, quite frankly, I don’t answer the same question the third time with as much depth as the first!

Remember that the aim of the Club is to be an educational experience and to give you a small taste of what it is like to be a racehorse owner. There is a lot of great stuff in this game but there is also a lot of difficult stuff that we have to navigate as well. Right now I know we’re not running as much as we’d like or have as many horses as we want to have. I hope the above gives you some insight into the processes and challenges involved – things don’t always go right, but we try and work with what we are dealt and make the best of it.